Category: Life

The Happiest Place on Earth

My apologies to Walt Disney. I’m shamelessly stealing the idea for this post from Lisa at Keeping Pace, but I have a different take on it, so bear with me.

The Compact O.E.D. Second Edition defines “happy” as, “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.” Another definition I found states that “happy” connotes a feeling of satisfaction that something has been done well. In my association with St. Procopius Abbey over the last several years, I have had many occasions to feel happy, but never more so than when I attend a wake. This requires a little context.

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Who’s Buried in Grant’s Tomb?

A friend asked me the other day how the new book was coming along which, as usual, sent me off on another tangent of thought. You see, the new novel is a work of historical fiction, which requires a great deal of research. That’s no big deal for me because I’ve always enjoyed reading about history. The usual response when I say that is, “Ugh. All those names and dates. How boring!”

Well, if all you look at are names and dates, then yeah, that’s weapons-grade boring. But that’s not what history is, not really. History is the story of people and their interactions with each other. For human beings, nothing is quite so fascinating to us as we are ourselves. Properly applied, history shows us what we have done before so as to give us insight into what we might do again. But how can that be? People in the past were so different than us.

Really?

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This isn’t What it Looks Like

When I was a kid, my friends and I played a lot of basketball. In the summer, we played lots more basketball, 10-12 hours a day, everyday. The day would start with games of “21” in the driveway, followed by more 21 in someone else’s driveway followed by pickup games on the courts at the Little League diamonds until it was too dark. At which point we’d go play in someone’s driveway that had good lights. You get the picture.

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Grrrrr…

In a recent interview about his new book The Tyranny of Clichés,  NRO’s Jonah Goldberg told Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie when asked why he wrote the book that,

…the best muse there is, is being annoyed.

This post isn’t a review of the book, although it sounds very interesting, (click the link above to watch the interview) it’s about that quote. It struck me in a completely unrelated way. Let me explain:

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Frustration

A good friend told me recently that, “I think frustration mostly stems out of knowing where you want to be but have no idea how to get there.” Maybe that seems pretty commonsensical to you, but it struck me rather forcefully.

I’ve been struggling for a few days with a depression bordering on despair. When my friend said this, a light went off. Yes, I want to do something, to get somewhere, but when I try to think how to do it, to get there, I find I really don’t even know where to start and this is the source of the problem. Continually approaching the problem from different angles has only resulted in more frustration at my impotence. My inability to make headway adds to the depression. Almost as if walls were being thrown up in front of me at every turn. What to do? John Keats said:

I am in that temper that if I were under water, I would scarcely kick to come to the top.

And there it is. What to do? Kick and keep kicking till you break the surface. Sore muscles may go with it, but it beats the alternative.

Sometimes You Just Have to Stop and Watch the Squirrels

This past weekend was hot here in Chicago, but I couldn’t resist sitting out on the patio in the shade for a little while. By this time of year, all the backyard critters are raising their young, or more accurately, trying to get them to move out. Hmm…that’s probably true of human parents too, but I digress.

Watching the goings on in the yard was immensely entertaining. Papa Grackle was still feeding his fully-fledged young who flew around with him wherever he went. The rabbits were ignoring the new generation of bunnies who ignored them right back. But the real show was Momma Squirrel and her wild offspring. Three young squirrels were zooming around the yard, chasing, playing tag, and hide-and-seek. One squirrel would hide on the branch of a bush while the others scampered hither and thither trying to find him. The hiding squirrel sat very still, even as his siblings were sniffing around under his bush. Eventually he was discovered and they all tore off after each other squeaking with joy.

One little squirrel in particular was impossible to ignore. He hounded his poor mother everywhere she went. Quite the momma’s boy. She’d be searching for seeds under the bird feeder, or looking for the peanut she buried under the lilies a month ago, and there he was at her heel. She’d go to take a drink in the pond, and there he was. She even tried running away and hiding herself, but he was always right there. He played with his siblings too, but he seemed to be especially attached to her. Once while she was snuffling for seeds under the bird feeder, he climbed one of the trees overhanging the area, crept out on a branch directly over her, and then with a squeak that I could swear sounded exactly like, “Geronimo!” he dropped on her back. Hilarity ensued.

She got him back though. Since it was hot, the squirrels stopped at the pond pretty regularly. While she was taking a drink, Junior decided to sneak up and pounce on her. She saw him though and ducked. Sploosh! In he went, quickly emerging looking sad and silly, and resembling a half drowned rat. The rabbit who was sitting nearby, twitched his nose at this undignified display.

So by now you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, great, you’ve got animals in your yard. Big deal. So do I. Is there a point to all this?” Well yes, there is a point. It is very, very easy in our hyper-fast, busy, crowded, technological age to become numb to the world around us. We become alienated from our environment to the point that we forget we are also part of it. Sitting and watching the squirrels, I could positively feel God’s joy over His creation. After all, God’s creation is an act of His love. When stopping to appreciate the beauty and diversity of all that God has made, one can only conclude that He must really enjoy making it. As a writer, I feel a tiny glimmer of that joy whenever I turn out a well-written paragraph. I’m sure you feel it too, when you complete some project that comes out well.

If God can be so happy over the very smallest of creatures, image what He must feel about you who were made in His image and likeness.

What now?

I’ll bet you’ve had the feeling, more than once in your life, of being completely unsure of what to do next. Everyone does. Sometimes the feeling is so overwhelming that it takes an extreme act of will to break through.

What I’m talking about here is distinct from The Naugahyde Soul. This is a case of, “There are so many things I need to do, but I don’t know where to start.” You feel them lurking in the background whispering to you, “When are you going to finish your taxes? When will you finish painting the bedroom? When will you start the next chapter of your book? When? When? When??”

The sheer number of pressing concerns causes us to panic or it may be the futile feeling that once we embark on a new project, it will turn out to be a waste of time. Maybe so. Deep down though, we know we need to make a start regardless of how it all turns out in the end. Maybe we have failed so miserably in the past that we can’t muster the courage to try.

A wise man once told me that, “When you don’t know what to do, do what you know to do.” Simple, solid advice. We all know what we need to do, we merely need to begin. Sure, it may not feel like you’re making headway, but I guarantee you, there will come a moment when you look up and see how much progress you’ve made.

Are there too many things that have to be tackled right now? Then pick the snake closest to you, the one that’s about to bite and kill it first. In my experience, once you take action, you realize that there was no need to panic in the first place. Everything can and will get sorted out. That new project may open doors you never dreamed of and if it doesn’t work out that way, just think of the wealth of new experience you can bank away for the future. Your past failures can be washed away with a sincere effort to try again.

The point is, to begin. And when you have begun, remember to begin again. Life is a continual battle to rouse yourself to begin again. When you’ve failed, when you’ve slowed down, when you’ve up and stopped.

There is an old story of the young monk who after falling into some sin, came to his spiritual father and said, “Abba, what shall I do, I have fallen.”

The Abba replied, “Then get up.”

“But I did get up and I’ve fallen again.”

“Then get up again.”

“Abba, how long shall I keep getting up?”

“My son,” said the old monk, “until the day you die.”

 

Life B.O.B.

You might like to know that there is a contingent of our society that worries about the impending implosion of civilization, and actively prepares for it. Some are what you might call survivalists. You see them on reality TV. Some are ex-boy scouts who, as you know, are always prepared. Some are ex-military, who have been trained to deal with the implosion of civilization, or ex-public safety officers who deal with it every day as their job. Others are just people with too much time on their hands. Whatever their background or personal reasons for concern, they do have a point.

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